Where the drop bar mountain bike became a road product - the Giant TCR
I picked up this '99 Giant TCR ONCE team replica a couple weeks ago, and doing research found that it was the first drop bar mountain bike!
The story is that Mike Burrows (designed the Lotus) was working for Giant and had the idea of a compact frame delivering a competitive edge as well as making production sizing easier.
So he walked into manufacturing and took a Fischer mountain bike frame off the line and used that for the original proof.
I think it was '98 that they showed up at the TDF.


I gotta admit that I didn't like the look back then, but they did change the style of modern road bikes!